Elizabeth Graver, Author of Kantika
Virtual
4:30 PM PST
7:30 PM EST
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Awarded:
10 Best Historical Fiction & Notable Books of 2023, The New York Times
Learn more about Kantika and the author Elizbeth Graver
A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika — “song” in Ladino — follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way: a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure, and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge: her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old.
Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body — in work, art and love — serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life.
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